


This Changes Things. Doesn't It?

by JackyRamada



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Has Issues, Cannon Divergence, Cannon until the last jedi, F/M, Hux is a third wheel even tho he's the POV character, Hux thinks he's the main character, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, No redemption for Kylo, Slow Burn, at least for chapter one after that who knows, but lowkey it's kinda still Rey and Kylo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27933799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyRamada/pseuds/JackyRamada
Summary: Rey makes a deal and keeps her promise at the end of the Last Jedi. She's with Kylo Ren now, although in what sense, one can only guess.Hux knows the First Order will crumble with Kylo leading it and knows his days are numbered as well. He's trying to find his angle when suddenly he notices Rey.Or... Rey saves Hux's life and he's too big of a nerd to immediately realize how turned on he is.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	1. This Changes Things, Doesn't It?

He didn't see her at first, he was ashamed to admit. Didn't consider her. There were so many things to consider at just that time, that at first, she seemed but an extension of Ren to Hux. Another soldier. Another of Kylo's knights- a pale shadow of Kylo's power, which remained the real problem for Hux to solve.  
It was obvious that the situation could and most probably would deteriorate with Snokes... passing. Kylo had so much power, but ultimately no control, over himself or the first order. A direct confrontation was out of the question. But still, the angry boy could not be left steering the ship. With proper planning and calculations, Hux was sure he could find a solution. assuming he could stay alive that long.  
He was afraid of Kylo Ren. He didn't respect him, but he did fear him. Hux was pragmatic enough to admit this to himself. He would have to be a fool not to fear him.  
After Snoke’s death, Hux spent that first cycle observing, waiting, searching for any opportunity. Any idea. Any solution.  
He did notice then that this girl, this desert rat. Seemed to hold Rens attention. When she entered a room, instantly he was distracted. Hux had sneered to himself at this. How pathetical common. Would a pretty face be Ren's undoing?  
But even then, he hadn't realized what this girl could be. How important. Special. She was. 

No. It was not until Kylo Ren was having yet another temper tantrum, raging the way that he so often did that Hux finally, truly noticed her. When Kylo destroyed a droid charging port that had just been repaired, Hux, silently standing by, had made the mistake of letting out a quiet, frustrated sigh.  
Before he even knew what was happening, he was thrown against the wall like a rag doll, his feet dangling two feet off of the ground, and his windpipe closing in on itself.  
His eyes bulged and he clawed manically at his own throat, his survival instinct overriding any reason. He felt his own blood, hot on his fingertips, as his nails tore his skin.  
"You disrespect me for the last time *General.*" Kylo sneered.  
Hux weezed, unable to even to speak, and the force on his throat only clenched tighter. Helpless. He was utterly helpless. In a room full of his own men, and he knew not one of them would dare speak for him now. Not one of them would raise a finger against Ren. He saw stars and then spots, and then nothing at all. He could hear himself choking, a horrible sound for a man to hear, and he realized with a cold, dreadful certainty that he was about to die.  
But he didn’t die. Because just at that moment, the door hissed open, and he heard her voice.  
"Stop it! What are you doing?!"  
The pressure left Huxes throat and he gasped desperately, sputtering for air.

His vision swam and returned to him. Still pinned to the wall with dangling feet, he let his eyes focus on the form in front of him: Kylo Ren looking very much a scolded little boy.  
Hux's brows furrowed in confusion at the unfamiliar sight. His eyes swam, and his head spun, and Hux’s eyes drifted from Kylo, to the woman standing in the doorway, staring down the man in black. Something twisted in Hux's stomach. And he swallowed deeply as an unfamiliar feeling filled him. He'd never seen any one stand up to Kylo Ren before.

"This doesn't concern you." Kylo said, but it was almost... gentle. Uncharacteristically so.  
Rey snarled. She thrust both her hands out in an angry motion, and suddenly Hux was tumbling to the floor. When he gathered his wits enough to look around, he found Kylo Ren had been thrown across the room, a wild mixture of emotions on his face.  
"You can't just treat people like this!" She shouted at him, her eyes watered with what seemed to be tears of frustration.  
Kylo stood. "Rey." He breathed. She turned away, and Kylo Ren was running after her before she was fully out of the room.

And Hux was left alone, in a room full of tin soldiers. The sudden stillness was jarring, as his men stared on. Hux collected himself off the floor, still sputtering and coughing, cupping his damaged throat protectively in one hand, as the other clung to the wall to try to support and balance himself.  
He stared at the closed door that Ren and the girl had disappeared through, as his mind reeled to process everything that had just happened.  
Arkanis be damned! He had almost died! He hadn't come this far just to die like that!  
And that girl. Rey. She had seemed just a shadow of Ren but... She had come in here and...  
His stomach flipped in a way he didn't understand but didn't entirely dislike. She saved his life.  
This changes things, he thought.  
Remembering himself, his eyes darted around the room to all then men still staring silently at him as he struggled to catch his breath. “Well?!” He snarled, “Get back to work!”  
The room filled with noise and motion once more, as the frightened soldiers and technicians hustled to obey his command.  
That night, in his bunk, Hux treated the deep scratches on his neck, sterilizing and sealing them, then drank medicinal tea to help nurse his terribly sore throat.  
Then he climbed into bed but found he couldn't sleep. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking. Recalculating. It was the first time he really noticed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want more, comment! I've got some ideas on what I might do with this, but not sure if I'll continue. Hux is such a weird character and I'd love to get into it :D


	2. The Bitter Sweet Taste is Unfamiliar to Me

No doubt, she could be an asset incomparable to anything else at his disposal. In numerous ways! There was the physical power she contained, one that seemed to rival Kylo Ren. There was the psychological power she held over Hux’s enemy. Kylo hadn’t spared him a glance since that day.

She was unafraid. But most importantly, she seemed vulnerable. He was sure he could find a way to influence her to his advantage. The more he observed her, the more he was sure that he had found what he was hoping for and so much more- if he played his cards right that is.

But he would have to play his cards right. This could be a singular opportunity. He had to be prepared.

The girl was never alone. Kylo hung around her in every instant that he wasn’t working- something that used to be a rare occurrence, but now, Kylo seemed to be quite distracted. He trained with her for hours sometimes. When Ren did turn his attention to his duties, he never brought her along. Perhaps he didn’t trust her. But when this was the case, he kept at least two guards by her side at all times. Even when she returned to her quarters, they waited outside of her door.

She ate her meals in the mess hall, with everyone else, though she sat alone. No one dared approach her. On a few occasions he caught her attempting to make small talk with the Stormtroopers who guarded her. Evidently they were under strict order not to talk to her, as they never did. The girl would look dejected and return to her meal.

_Lonely._ He noted.

Something else of use that he noticed was her eating habits. Whenever she ate, she squirreled away a portion of her food into her cloaks when she thought no one was looking. At first he considered if this was part of a plan of escape. _Was she Ren’s prisoner?_ He wondered.

It was possible. But with what he knew of her history, he had a feeling this was not the reason for her behavior. He was familiar with this behavior. _Food insecurity._ After a lifetime of being unsure where or when her next meal would be, a fear gripped her that reason had yet to shake. Although she was here now, with three meals a day served at the same time every day, she was still plagued by the anxiety of starvation.

When he was a boy, he and his mother had gone hungry many times. She worked as a kitchen woman for the soldiers of the Galactic Empire back on Arkanis. Some nights she would bring home the half eaten scraps of the men to sustain them, Hux remembered with a pang of emotion- a mixture of anger, humiliation, and the old fear of hunger. 

Food. And loneliness. Two weak spots.

He could certainly work with that.

He thought back to that mind set, returning himself to the unpleasant emotions of his childhood, eating the often disgusting scraps of soldiers and generals that he now outranked to survive. What would he have wanted most at that time? What would he have craved?

Oh his home world, there was a type of shellfish called savian shellfish. Although highly poisonous, when processed correctly, it was quite a delicacy. He remembered going to see the man that fathered him. Commandant Brendol Hux had spoken down to him, as he stood at attention. All the while, the older man had been slurping away at a bowl of poached savian cream soup. 

He remembered how hungry he had been, and the smell of the soup. The difficulty of keeping his eyes straight ahead, and his face neutral as steam floated gracefully off the surface of the dish.

Now his father was dead. And poached savian cream soup seemed like peasants food to him. But at the time…

Hux researched the planet that the scavenger had been found on. Jakku, a desert planet, dry and hot and nothing but sand. Hardly even a trading post. Little more than a rock where broken down ships stopped for parts and fuel. Jakku gave next to nothing to it’s world. Heat and sand. The majority of its inhabitants lived off of dehydrated ration packets. Some mining. Booze brewing. Junk racing. A hard planet to get by on, surely. As he researched it, a clear picture of the girl appeared in his mind. He respected this girl for what she certainly must have gone through in her life.

There was just one thing of any value that Jakku produced. In the few remaining and ever shifting oasis’ of the planet, a berry grew- bitter sweet, with a dark blue hue. So dark that it was almost purple. Tuanalberries. How vibrant and life giving it would taste in a desert fed on powdered bread. It was the rarest delicacy on the entire planet. 

Of course to Hux it would be no real challenge to get his hand on it.

A week passed, and he had what he needed. 

He would approach her in the dining hall where she ate alone. The guards wouldn’t dare stop him, though they would certainly report back to Ren whatever was said. If he played his cards just right, it would be no matter- the seeds would already be planted to achieve his goals.

The day came, and he had prepared to the very best of his abilities. Made a list of his goals for the interaction and ranked them by priority, thought out exactly what he wanted to say. He had one chance, and he knew it would not be unreasonable to assume that a misstep could end in his death at the hands of Kylo Ren.

He stood in the doorway of the mess hall, and hesitated slightly as his eyes landed on the girl. He needed her to like him. His hands clammed up slightly, and he clenched and unclenched them. People skills were not a strength of his. In the past, he had rarely needed people to like him.

He took a deep breath, knowing hesitation was failure, and any who saw him hovering in the door would surely sense his weakness. He was prepared. He could do this. 

Clenching his jaw, Hux steadied his nerves and started a determined gait across the dining room. 

He reached the girl’s table and threw down the Tuanalberry tart in front of her unceremoniously. 

She looked at the tart, then up at him in confusion. 

He glared back at her. She looked tense and a bit afraid. The two soldiers standing behind her stood a little straighter, onguard. _Oh, right._ Hux realized just how unfriendly he must look. 

In the First Order, looking vulnerable won’t get you far. Hux was used to glaring his way through anything that made him feel nervous. With conscious effort he softened his face.

The girl stared at him suspiciously, then glanced down at the little dessert he had placed before her. “What’s this?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I got it for you.” He said clumsily. Internally, he screamed at himself to get it together. Quickly he regrouped. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”

Now she softened too. “Oh. You didn’t have to do that. Ben-” One of the two soldiers shifted behind her, and Rey glanced over her shoulder uneasily, “Kylo. Should never have done that to you. I’m sorry.”

Hux nodded curtly in acknowledgment.

Her delicate hands curled around the treat, and she looked at it curiously. “What is it?”

Hux licked his lips. Perfect. He was ready for this, he had prepared for her to ask. “It’s a tart. Made from Tuanalberries. I placed a special order for them and had the kitchen make it.”

Rey’s eyes widened, “No it’s not!” She exclaimed, looking back at the pastry in wonder.

Hux hadn’t prepared for that. “I…? It is.” He reaffirmed, a bit confused.

“Tuanalberries? Really? How did you...?” Hux’s ego flutters at her delight. Rey cups the little pie, staring at it again in awe, before finally, sounding a bit disappointed, she says “I can’t accept this.”

_What?_ A spike of confusion and panic stabs at Hux. Had he misstepped? He swallows hard to keep his fear at bay. Why can’t she accept it? “The berries are from your planet. I-I thought you would like them.” He stutters. He feels the eyes of those around him weighing on him. People are always watching here. Measuring you.

“It’s too much. I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

Hux is taken aback, and he feels his eyes widen in surprise, and his cheeks lift of their own accord into the faintest, but sincerest smile. 

“Too much? You _saved my life._ ” He affirms, genuinely.

She seems touched by this. She nods, and her eyes seem to water just a little. He supposes that whatever the reason she is for her being on their ship, she must be having a very challenging few weeks.

“ _Thank you_.” She says, sincerely. “Thank you, this is really thoughtful.” Something flutters within Hux’s chest. His brow furrows, as he internally chastises himself. He can not be distracted from his goals. Though things seem to be back on track, he reassures himself.

“Truly, it is the least that I could do.” He says back

He lingers for a fraction of a moment, counts in his head, _one, two_. “Well I guess I should leave you be. I don’t mean to disturb your peace. I hope you enjoy the tart.”

He turns, as if to leave, and his heart pounds. It’s a risk not to ask to join her, but he hopes…

“Wait!” Rey calls out, perhaps a bit louder than she intended. He turns to look back at her, and she looks a bit embarrassed by her outburst. 

If he could, he would raise an eyebrow at her.

“Will you sit with me?” She asks. It might have sounded pathetic, but somehow he finds it a bit charming. He nods, so relieved that things are going as he hoped, and stiffly takes a seat beside her.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think? I'm thinking this is gonna be kind of a weird little Hux character study, possibly with eventual smut. The shelf fish, berries, and Hux's back story are all real Star Wars lore btw.


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